Systems and methods for training a model to determine whether a query with multiple segments comprises multiple distinct commands or a combined command

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for training a model to accurately determine whether two phrases are conversationally connected. A media guidance application may detect a first phrase and a second phrase, translate each phrase to a string of word types, append each string to the back of a prior string to create a combined string, determine a degree to which any of the individual strings, matches any singleton template, and determine a degree to which the combined string matches any conversational template. Based on the degrees to which the individual and combination strings match the singleton and conversational templates, respectively, strengths of association are correspondingly updated.

BACKGROUND

It is becoming ubiquitous, for searches to be carried out by devicesthat detect a voice or textual input. For example, if a user types outthe phrase “show me a list of action movies” into a search engine, asearch might be performed for a list of action movies. These devices,however, are not able to effectively distinguish between where onesearch string ends, and a next search string begins. For example,devices are not able to effectively discern that the string “Show me alist of action movies. What is the weather?” includes two separatesearch commands.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are provided herein for training a model toaccurately determine whether two phrases are conversationally connected.For example, if the search string “Show me a list of action movies. Whatis the weather?” is input by a user, the systems and methods describedherein may resolve that two separate commands of “Show me a list ofaction movies” and “What is the weather?” have been input, and may feedback this resolution to a model for the model to more accuratelyidentify whether strings include one or more commands.

In some aspects of the disclosure, a media guidance application that isexecuted by control circuitry of user equipment may detect a firstphrase and a second phrase. The media guidance application may detectthe first phrase and the second phrase through any known user inputinterface of a user equipment (described further below with respect toFIG. 4), such as a microphone if the phrases were spoken, or a keyboardor touch screen if the phrases were typed. The detection of the firstphrase and the second phrase may be detected even if both phrases areinput through a single Search command. Any known means of naturallanguage processing may be used to distinguish between the first andsecond phrase. Natural language processing is further discussed in U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/728,702, filed Jun. 2, 2015, presentlypending, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by referenceherein in their entirety. As a non-limiting example, if a user types“show me action movies with Tom Cruise,” the media guidance applicationmay detect that the conjunction or transitional word of “with” indicatesa second phrase, such that “show me action movies” is the first phrase,and “With Tom Cruise” is the second phrase.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may translate thefirst phrase to a first string of word types by determining what type ofword each word of the first phrase represents, and may replace each wordof the first phrase with its respective type. Similarly, the mediaguidance application may translate the second phrase to a second stringof word types by determining what type of word each word of the secondphrase represents, and may replace each word of the second phrase withits respective type.

The media guidance application may perform the translation of either thefirst phrase or the second phrase by first extracting a word from eitherthe first phrase or the second phrase. For example, the media guidanceapplication may extract words (or terms including multiple words)individually from the command “show me action movies with Tom Cruise.”

After extracting the words, the media guidance application may compare agiven word (or multi-word term) to entries of a database that indicatesword types of known words (or term, types of known terms). For example,the term “show me” may be translated to the type “command” becauseentries of a database associate the term “show me” with a command.Similarly, the media guidance application may translate the word“action” to the type “genre” based on indicia of an entry of thedatabase, may translate “movie” to “media category” because movie is atype of media category, and may translate “Tom Cruise” to the type“crew” because an entry of the database indicates that Tom Cruise was anactor who starred in the crew of a movie. In some embodiments, however,a word type may not be known for a given word. For example, if anup-and-coming actor who is not well known is searched for, and thatactor's name is extracted and then compared to entries of the database,the database may have no entry corresponding to that name.

The media guidance application may then determine whether a word type isknown based on the comparing. This determination may be made based onwhether an entry exists for a given word in the database. In response todetermining that the word type is known, the media guidance applicationmay replace the word with the word type indicated in an entrycorresponding with the word. Thus, following translation of the firstphrase “Show me action Movie,” a string may be generated of just wordtypes that says ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category.’ The second phrasemay be translated to the string: ‘transitional word’ ‘crew.’

As described above, a word type for a given word may be unknown. Thus,the media guidance application may, in response to determining that aword type is unknown, compare the word to entries of a dictionarydatabase to determine a grammatical category of the word. For example,the term “movie” may be determined by the media guidance application tobe of the grammatical category of “noun.” The media guidance applicationmay additionally compare the word to entries of a graph to determine ahigh-level category corresponding to the word. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that the term “movie” belongs to thehigh-level category “media category” based on the comparison to thegraph. The media guidance application may then extrapolate a word typebased on the grammatical category and the high-level category. Forexample, the media guidance application, having determined that the wordis a noun and is associated with a “media category” corresponds to thetype: “media category.” Graphs (interchangeably referred to as“knowledge graphs” herein) are described further in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/501,504, filed Sep. 30, 2014, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/500,309, filed Sep. 29, 2014, and U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/448,308, filed Jul. 31, 2014, which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may generate a thirdstring of word types by appending the second string to the end of thefirst string. For example, as was described in the above example, thefirst string may be: ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category,’ and the secondstring may be: ‘transitional word’ ‘crew’. Thus, the media guidanceapplication may generate a third string: ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘mediacategory’ ‘transitional word’ ‘crew’ by appending the second string ofword types to the second string of word types.

The media guidance application may determine a first degree to which thefirst string and the second string matches any singleton template of aplurality of singleton templates by comparing both the first string andthe second string to the plurality of singleton templates. As will bedescribed in more detail below, a singleton template is a template for astring of word types associated with a single command. In someembodiments, each singleton template represents a template of word typesthat represent a valid search query that requires no further input to beexecuted. For example, if string of word types that does not have atransitional word, such as the word “with,” within it, then the stringlikely can be executed without additional input, and is likely to matcha singleton template.

The media guidance application may additionally determine a seconddegree to which the third String matches any conversational template ofa plurality of conversational templates. As will be described in moredetail below, a conversational template is a template for a string ofword types associated with two or more commands.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the first degree exceeds the second degree. In other words, themedia guidance application may determine whether the first string andthe second string strongly correspond to a template for single commands,and may also determine whether the combined strings (i.e., the thirdstring) corresponds strongly to a template for double commands. Inresponse to determining that the first degree exceeds the second degree(e.g., the first string and second string strongly correspond to single,individual commands), the media guidance application may decrease astrength of association between the first string and a conversationalcategory, and may decrease a strength of association between the secondstring and the conversational category. The net effect of this is that,if the model is relied upon to resolve similar search strings, a graphwill now indicate that the first string and the second string are likelyindividual commands. Furthermore, the media guidance application mayproceed to execute a first search corresponding to the first phrase, andto execute a second, separate search corresponding to the second phrase.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the second degreeexceeds the first degree, the media guidance application may increasethe strength of association between the first string and theconversational category, and may also increase the strength ofassociation between the second string and, the conversational category.The net effect of this is that, if the model is relied upon to resolvesimilar search strings, a graph will now indicate that the first stringand the second string are likely a combined, single command.Furthermore, the media guidance application may now create a combinedphrase by combining the first phrase with the second phrase, and maythen execute a search on the combined phrase.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may access a graphthat indicates expected importance levels of word types. For example, asearch string may include. a word that is more important than otherwords. The media guidance application may compare each word, type of thefirst string to the graph to determine a respective, expected importancelevel, and may identify a predominant, word type based on a highestdetermined respected importance level corresponding to a respective wordtype of the first string. As an example, the word typo string ‘command’‘genre’ ‘media category,’ for example, contains the word type ‘mediacategory.’ The media guidance application may determine that the wordtype “media category” is the predominant word type of this string basedon data of the graph.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine, basedon the predominant word type of the first string, a string type, and Mayincrease a strength of association between the first string and thestring type. Thus, following from the example above, the word typestring of ‘command’ ‘genre’ media category' may have a predominant wordtype of ‘media category.’ Thus, a strength of association between theword type string of ‘command’ ‘genre’ and ‘media category’ and thestring type of “a command to search for media of a media category” maybe increased. This may help train the model such that, next time asimilar search string is detected by the media guidance application, themedia guidance application may more quickly resolve that theconversational category of the command is likely a search for a media ofa specified category.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may detect thesecond phrase subsequent to a time at which the media guidanceapplication detects the first phrase. The media guidance applicationmay, when determining the first degree in this scenario, determinewhether a word type of a first word of the second string is of atransitional type, and, in response to determining that the word type ofthe first word of the second string is of the transitional type, themedia guidance application may reduce the first degree. In other words,some word types strongly indicate that a preceding string is part of acombined search string, or a “conversation.” Transitional word types inparticular indicate that a preceding string is part of a conversationbecause strings that begin with a transitional word type cannot standalone, and must connect to a preceding command. In some embodiments, themedia guidance application may additionally increase the second degreein response to determining that the word type of the first word of thesecond string is of the transitional type, for the same reasons as itwould decrease the first degree.

In some aspects, systems and methods are provided for using a trainedknowledge graph (e.g., as trained using the above systems and methods)to accurately determine whether two phrases are conversationallyconnected. To this end, in some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may receive a first phrase, a second phrase, and a thirdphrase. The phrases may be received through mechanisms described aboveand below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may translate thefirst phrase to a first string of word types by determining what type ofword each word of the first phrase represents, and replace each word ofthe first phrase with its respective type. Similarly, the media guidanceapplication may translate the second phrase to a second string of wordtypes by determining what type of word each word of the second phraserepresents, and by replacing each word of the second phrase with itsrespective type, and may also translate the third phrase to a thirdstring of word types by determining what type of word each word of thethird phrase represents, and by replacing each word of the third phrasewith its respective type. The media guidance application may accomplishthese ends through any means described above and below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may access aknowledge graph to determine a first strength of association between acombination of the first string and the second string and anyConversational category of a plurality of conversational categories, anda second strength of association between a combination of the secondstring and the third string and any conversational category of theplurality of conversational categories. The first and second strength ofassociation may be calculated in any manner described above and below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether any of the first strength of association and the second strengthof association exceed a threshold, and, may responsive to thisdetermining, may make a determination as to which strings, if any, arepart of a conversation. For example, if both the first strength ofassociation and the second strength of association exceed the threshold,the media guidance application may determine, that each of the firststring, the second string, and the third string are part of a firstconversation. If the first strength of association exceeds thethreshold, but the second strength of association does not exceed thethreshold, the media guidance application may determine that the firststring and the second string are part of a second conversation that thethird string is not a part of. Likewise, if the second strength ofassociation exceeds the threshold, but the first strength of associationdoes not exceed the threshold, the media guidance application maydetermine that the second string and the third string are part of athird conversation that the first string is not a part of. The meaningof what it means to be part of a conversation is described above andbelow.

In some embodiments, if both the first strength of association and the.second strength of association exceed the threshold, the media guidance.Application may execute a search relating to the first conversation.Further, if the first strength of association exceeds the threshold, butthe second strength of association does not exceed the threshold, themedia guidance application may execute a search relating to the secondconversation. Additionally, if the second strength of associationexceeds the threshold, but the first strength of association does notexceed the threshold, the media guidance application may execute asearch relating to the third conversation. Executing a search isdescribed above and below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may generate fordisplay a query corresponding to the executed search. The media guidanceapplication may then receive feedback from a user that indicates thatthe query, does not accurately represent an intended search of the user,and, in response to receiving the feedback, the media guidanceapplication may update the knowledge graph according to the feedback.Thus, in future searches, the feedback will be used to perform a moreaccurate search.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatnone of the first strength of association and the second strength ofassociation exceed the threshold. The media guidance application mayproceed to prompt a user for feedback as to whether the desired searchquery matches the combination of the first string and the second string,or the combination of the second string and the third string. Inresponse to receiving feedback that the desired search query was thecombination of the first string and the second string, the mediaguidance application may increase the strength of association betweenthe combination of the first string and the second string and acorresponding closest conversational category to a first value that isat least as high as the threshold value, and, in response to receivingfeedback that the desired search query was the combination of the secondstring and the third string, the media guidance application may increasethe strength of association between the combination of the second stringand the third string and a corresponding closest conversational categoryto a second value that is at least as high as the threshold value.Further, in response to receiving feedback that the desired search querydoes not match either of the combination of the first string and thesecond string, or the combination of the second string and the thirdstring, the media guidance application may increase a strength ofassociation between each of the first string, the second string, and thethird string with a singleton category in the knowledge graph. This willfurther improve the knowledge graph's associations for further searches.

In some embodiments, each conversational category of the plurality ofconversational categories represents a conversation formed by anamalgamation of at least two strings that each, individually, match arespective singleton template. The media guidance application may thusdetermine that the matching singleton templates, when juxtaposed, aredetermined to form a single query. This determination may also be usedto update the knowledge graph. In some embodiments, the first string,the second string, and the third string may form a single query as well,and thus the first conversation, the second conversation, and the thirdconversation form the single query based on a respective juxtapositionof the first string, the second string, and the third string.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 depicts a user equipment that may determine whether multiplecommands are part of the same conversation, or are separate, isolatedcommands, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether two separate commands are part of a same conversation, or areisolated, individual commands, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determining adegree to which a string of word types matches a template, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 8 is a flow chart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether separate commands are part of a single conversation, based oninformation of a knowledge graph, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are provided herein for training a model toaccurately determine whether two phrases are conversationally connected.For example, if the search string “show me a list of action movies. whatis the weather?” is input by a user, the systems and methods describedherein may resolve that two separate commands of “show me a list ofaction movies” and “what is the weather?” have been input, and may feedback this resolution to a model for the model to more accuratelyidentify whether strings include one or more commands.

FIG. 1 depicts a user equipment that may determine whether multiplecommands are part of the same conversation, or are separate, isolatedcommands, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. In someaspects of the disclosure, a media guidance application that is executedby control circuitry of user equipment 100 may detect a first phrase 104and a second phrase 106. The media guidance application, controlcircuitry, and user equipment 100 are all described further below withrespect to FIGS. 4 and 5.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may detect firstphrase 104 and the second phrase 106 through any known user inputinterface of a user equipment (described further below with respect toFIG. 4), such as a microphone (e.g., microphone 102) if the phrases werespoken, or a keyboard or touch screen if the phrases were typed. Themedia guidance application may be, commanded to listen for the firstphrase and the second phrase (e.g., by a user initiating a searchapplication). Alternatively or additionally, the media guidanceapplication may passively listen for phrases during routine activity,such as listening for phrases in social media chatter or messagesbetween users, in order to reactively output, information relating towhat a user is doing.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may detect bothfirst phrase 104 and second phrase 106 even if both phrases are inputthrough a single search command. As discussed above, any known means ofnatural language processing may be used to distinguish between the firstand second phrase, such as the natural language processing techniquesdescribed above. As a non-limiting example, if a user types “show meaction movies with Tom Cruise,” the media guidance application maydetect that the conjunction of “with” indicates a second phrase, suchthat “show me action movies” is the first phrase, and “with Tom Cruise”is the second phrase.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may translate firstphrase 104 to a first string of word types by determining what type ofword each Word of the first phrase represents, and may replace each wordof first phrase 104 with its respective type. Similarly, the mediaguidance application may translate second phrase 106 to a second stringof word types by determining what type of word each word of secondphrase 106 represents, and may replace each word of the second phrasewith its respective type. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may perform the translation of either first phrase 104 orsecond phrase 106 by first extracting a word from either first phrase104 or second phrase 106. For example, the media guidance applicationmay extract words terms including multiple words) individually from thecommand “show me action movies with Tom Cruise.” While the disclosuredescribes processing of phrases by use of processing “words,” the term“word” and “term” carry the same effect and meaning, and processingdescribed with respect to an individual “word” may equally be carried toa “term” that includes multiple words, but carries its own knowndefinition. For example, the phrase “Tom Cruise” is a term, because itrefers to one known entity—namely, the actor, Tom Cruise.

In some embodiments, after extracting the words, the media guidanceapplication may compare a given word (or multi-word term) to entries ofa database that indicates word types of known words (or term types ofknown terms). The database may be a media-guidance data source, which isa specialized database described below with respect to FIG. 4, or thedatabase may be any other known type of database. The database may belocated locally, such as at local storage or memory of the userequipment, or it may be located remotely, and thus accessible by way ofa communications network. Each type of storage and the manner in whichstorage may occur is described below with respect to FIGS. 3 and 4.

As an example of the comparing, the media guidance application maycompare the term “show me” to entries of the database. The database mayindicate that the term “show me” is a ‘command.’ Thus, the term “showme” may be translated to the type ‘command.’ Similarly, the mediaguidance application may translate “action” to the type ‘genre’ based onindicia of an entry of the database, may translate “movie” to ‘mediacategory’ because “movie” is a type of ‘media category,’ and maytranslate “Tom Cruise” to the type ‘crew’ because an entry of thedatabase indicates that Tom Cruise was an actor who starred in the crewof a movie.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine that aword type is not known for a given word. This determination may be made,for example, if the database does not have an entry that associates theword to a word type. For example, if an up-and-coming actor who is notwell known is searched for, and that actor's name is extracted and, thencompared to entries of the database, the database may have no entrycorresponding to that name.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether a word type is known based on the comparing. For example, asdescribed above, the media guidance application may determine that aword type is known if an entry that corresponds a word to a word typeexists in the database. Similarly, the media guidance application maydetermine that a word type is unknown if the database does not have anentry that corresponds a word to a word type. In response to determiningthat the word type is known, the media guidance application may replacethe word with the word type indicated in an entry corresponding with theWord. Thus, following translation of first phrase 104 “Show me actionmovie,” a string may be generated Of just word types that says ‘command’‘genre’ media category.' Second phrase 106 may be translated, to thestring; ‘transitional word’ ‘crew.’

In some embodiments, when a word type for a given word is unknown, themedia guidance application may, in response to determining that a wordtype is unknown, compare the word to entries of a dictionary database todetermine a grammatical category of the word. The dictionary databasemay be a same database or a different database as the database describedabove that corresponds words to word types. The dictionary database maycarry any characteristic described above with respect to the databasedescribed above that corresponds words to word types. As an example ofdetermining grammatical categories of a word, the term “movie” may bedetermined by-the media guidance application to be of the grammaticalcategory of “noun.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may additionallycompare the word to entries of a graph to determine a high-levelCategory corresponding to the word. The term “graph,” as used herein, isa database that corresponds data (e.g., word types) to strength ofassociation between that data and other data. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that the term “movie” couldpotentially correspond to any of the high-level categories of “mediacategory,” “media that lasts longer than one hour,” “video media,” andthe like. The graph may indicate a highest degree of correlation between“Movie” and “media category,” and thus “media category” may be chosenbased on the comparison to the graph.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may then extrapolatea word type based on the grammatical category and the high-levelcategory. For example, the media guidance application, having determinedthat the word is a noun and is associated with a “media category”corresponds to the type: “media category.” As is plain from thisexample, the grammatical category sometimes will not affect the mediaguidance application's determination of type. Thus, it may be optionalwhether to consider the grammatical category.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may generate a thirdstring of word types by appending second string 106 to the end of firststring 104. For example, as was described in the above example, thefirst string may ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category’, and the secondstring may be: ‘transitional word’ ‘crew’. Thus, the media guidanceapplication may generate a third string: ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘mediacategory’ ‘transitional word’ ‘crew’ by appending the second string ofword types to the second string Of word types.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine afirst degree to which the first string and the second string matches anysingleton template of a plurality of singleton templates by comparingboth the first string and the second string to the plurality ofsingleton templates. By way of definition, the term “template” as usedin this disclosure means a string of words or word types thatcorresponds to a category. One type of category is a “singletontemplate,” which is a template for a string of words or word typesassociated with a single command. Another type of category is a“conversational template,” which is a template for a string of words orword types associated with two or more commands.

In some embodiments, each singleton template represents a template ofword types that represent a valid search query that requires no furtherinput to be executed. For example, if string of word types that does nothave a transitional word, such as the word “with,” within it, then thestring likely can be executed without additional input, and is likely tomatch a singleton template. There are, however, scenarios where onephrase matches a singleton template, but another does not—such as asecond phrase that has the word “with” its first word. In such ascenario, while the first phrase may match a singleton template, thefirst phrase may better match a conversational template when consideredin conjunction with the second phrase.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may additionallydetermine a second degree to which the third string matches anyconversational template of a plurality of conversational templates. Themedia guidance application may determine whether the first degreeexceeds the second degree. In other words, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether the first string and the second stringstrongly correspond to templates for single commands, and may alsodetermine whether the combined strings (i.e., the third string)corresponds strongly to a template for double commands.

In response to determining that the first degree exceeds the seconddegree (e.g., the first string and second string strongly correspond tosingle, individual commands), the media guidance application maydecrease a strength of association between the first string and aconversational category, and may decrease a strength of associationbetween the second string and the conversational category. The mediaguidance application may decrease these strength of association in agraph that maintains strength of association between variousconversational categories and strings of words or word types. The neteffect of this is that, if the model is relied upon to resolve similarsearch strings in the future, a graph will now indicate that the firststring and the second string are likely individual commands.

In some embodiments, after resolving that the first degree exceeds thesecond degree, the media guidance application may proceed to execute afirst search corresponding first phrase 104, and to execute a second,separate search corresponding to second phrase 106. The search resultsmay separately populate in search results 108, which may be generatedfor display through a display of user equipment 100. The display will bedescribed below with respect to FIG. 4. Additionally, or alternatively,the search results may be output verbally through speakers that areincorporated in, or connected to, user equipment 100. The speakers willbe described below with respect to FIG. 4.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the second degreeexceeds the first degree, the media guidance application may increasethe strength of association between the first string and theconversational category, and may also increase the strength ofassociation between the second string and the conversational category.Similar to the above, this may be performed by instructing a graph toincrement the above-described strengths of associations. The net effectof this is that, if the model is relied upon to resolve similar searchstrings, a graph will now indicate that the first string and the secondstring are likely a combined, single command.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the second degreeexceeds the first degree, the media guidance application may create acombined phrase by combining first phrase 104 with second phrase 106,and may then execute a search on the combined phrase. The results may beoutput in any manner described above and below, such as in searchresults 108 depicted in FIG. 1.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may access a graphthat indicates expected importance levels of word types. The graph maybe accessed through any database access mechanism described above andbelow. For example, a search string may include a word that is moreimportant than other words. The media guidance application may compareeach word type of the first string to the graph to determine arespective expected importance level. This may be performed in anymanner described above and below, such as comparing the word type toentries of the graph to find a matching graph entry that indicates animportance level of the word type. The media guidance application maythen identify a predominant word type based on a highest determinedrespected importance level corresponding to a respective word type ofthe first string. As an example, the word type string ‘command’ ‘genre’‘media category,’ for example, contains the word type ‘media category.’The media guidance application may determine that the word type “mediacategory” is the predominant word type of this string based on data ofthe graph.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine, basedon the predominant word type of the first string, a string type, and mayincrease a strength of association between the first string and thestring type. Thus, following from the example above, the word typestring of ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category’ may have a predominant wordtype of ‘media category.’ Thus, a strength of association between theword type string of ‘command’ ‘genre’ and ‘media category’ and thestring type of “a command to search for media of a media category” maybe increased. This may help train the model such that, next time asimilar search string is detected by the media guidance application, themedia guidance application may more quickly resolve that theconversational category of the command is likely a search for a media ofa specified category.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may detect thesecond phrase subsequent to a time at which the media guidanceapplication detects the first phrase. The media guidance applicationmay, when determining the first degree in this scenario, determinewhether a word type of a first word of the second string is of atransitional type, and, in response to determining that the word type ofthe first word of the second string is of the transitional type, themedia guidance application may reduce the first degree. As an example,the media guidance application may determine whether the first word ofthe second string is of the transitional type by learning itsgrammatical category by consulting a dictionary database, in any mannerdescribed above or below. In other words, some word types stronglyindicate that a preceding string is part of a combined search string, ora “conversation.” Transitional word types in particular indicate to themedia guidance application that a preceding string is part of aconversation because strings that begin with a transitional word typecannot stand alone, and must connect to a preceding command. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may additionally increasethe second degree in response to determining that the word type of thefirst word of the second string is of the transitional type, for thesame reasons as it would decrease the first degree.

In some aspects, systems and methods are provided for using a trainedknowledge graph (e.g., as trained using the above systems and methods)to accurately determine whether two phrases are conversationallyconnected. To this end, in some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may receive a first phrase, a second phrase, and a thirdphrase. The phrases may be received through mechanisms described aboveand below. As an example, following from FIG. 1, the first phrase may befirst phrase 104 (e.g., “Show me action movies”), the second phrase maybe second phrase 106 (e.g., “with Tom Cruise”), and the third phrase(not depicted in FIG. 1) may be any phrase, such as “and Paula Patton.”Paula Patton is an actress who co-starred with Tom Cruise in the movie“Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may translate thefirst phrase to a first string of word, types by determining what typeof word each word of the first phrase represents, and replace each wordof the first phrase with its respective type. Similarly, the mediaguidance application may translate the second phrase to a second stringof word types by determining what type of word each word of the secondphrase represents, and by replacing each word of the second phrase withits respective type, and may also translate the third phrase to a thirdstring of word types by determining what type of word each word of thethird phrase represents, and by replacing each word of the third phrasewith its respective type. The media guidance application may accomplishthese ends through any means described above and below. As describedabove and below, first phrase 104 may be translated to ‘command’ ‘genre’‘media category,’ and second phrase 104 may be translated to‘transitional word’ ‘crew.’ Similarly, the third phrase, following theexample above, may be translated to ‘transitional word’ ‘crew.’

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may access aknowledge graph to determine a first strength of association between acombination of the first string and the second string and anyconversational category of a plurality of conversational categories, anda second strength of association between a combination of the secondstring and the third string and any conversational category of theplurality Of conversational categories. The knowledge graph may beaccessed by any means described above and below. The first and secondstrength of association may be calculated in any manner described aboveand below. In essence, the media guidance application, by using thisstep, seeks to determine whether any conversational category at allmatches the combination of the first string and the second string. Ifany conversational category matches—regardless of which category itis—then the media guidance application may determine from that fact thatthe corresponding strings are intended to form one single conversation.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether any of the first strength of association and the second strengthof association exceed a threshold, and, may responsive to thisdetermining, may make a determination as to which strings, if any, arepart of a conversation. The threshold may be a static number thatconstitutes a sufficient strength of association to conclude that two ormore templates are part of a conversation. Alternatively the thresholdmay be a dynamic threshold that is updated as the knowledge graph isupdated. As an example, if a sufficient number of strengths ofassociation are high enough, or a high level of confidence is desired,the threshold may be raised correspondingly. The threshold may bechanged either based on an algorithm corresponding to how high thestrengths of association of the knowledge graph become, or manually byan editor. In some embodiments, if both the first strength ofassociation and the second strength of association exceed the threshold,the media guidance application may determine that each of the firststring, the second string, and the third string are part of a firstconversation. If the first strength of association exceeds thethreshold, but the second strength of association does not exceed thethreshold, the media guidance application may determine that the firststring and the second string are part of a second conversation that thethird string is not a part of. Likewise, if the second strength ofassociation exceeds the threshold, but the first strength of associationdoes not exceed the threshold, the media guidance application maydetermine that the second string and the third string are part of athird conversation that the first string is not a part of. The meaningof what it means to be part of a conversation is described above andbelow.

In some embodiments, if both the first strength of association and thesecond strength of association exceed the threshold, the media guidanceapplication may execute a search relating to the first conversation.Further, if the first strength of association exceeds the threshold, butthe second strength of association does not exceed the threshold, themedia guidance application may execute a search relating to the secondconversation. Additionally, if the second strength of associationexceeds the threshold, but the first strength of association does notexceed the threshold, the media guidance application may execute asearch relating to the third conversation. Executing a search accordingto a conversation is described above and below. In the example fromabove, the first conversation may be the entirety of the first phrase,the second phrase, and the third phrase, and thus the search performedmay be “Show me action movies with Tom Cruise and Paula Patton.” Thesecond conversation might solely be “Show me action movies with TomCruise.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may generate fordisplay a query corresponding to the executed search. For example, themedia guidance application may generate for display a query that says“Did you mean to say ‘Show me action movies with Tom Cruise and PaulaPatton’?” The media guidance application may then receive feedback froma user that indicates that the query does not accurately represent anintended search of the user, and, in response to receiving the feedback,the media guidance application may update the knowledge graph accordingto the feedback. The feedback may be the user indicating he meant toseparately search for action movies with Tom Cruise, and action movieswith Paula Patton, but not search for action movies that necessarilystar both actors. The knowledge graph may be updated to increase anddecrease strengths of association accordingly.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatnone of the first strength of association and the second strength ofassociation exceed the threshold. Similar to the foregoing, the mediaguidance application may proceed to prompt a user for feedback as towhether the desired search query matches the combination of the firststring and the second string, or the combination of the second stringand the third string. In response to receiving feedback that the desiredsearch query was the combination of the first string and the secondstring, the media guidance application may increase the strength ofassociation between the combination of the first string and the secondstring and a corresponding closest conversational category to a firstvalue that is at least as high as the threshold value, and, in responseto receiving feedback that the desired search query was the combinationof the second string and the third string, the media guidanceapplication may increase the strength of association between thecombination of the second string and the third string and acorresponding closest conversational category to a second value that isat least as high as the threshold value. Further, in response toreceiving feedback that the desired search query does not match eitherof the combination of the first string and the second string, or thecombination of the second string and the third string, the mediaguidance application may increase a strength of association between eachof the first string, the second string, and the third string with asingleton category in the knowledge graph. This will further improve theknowledge graph's associations for further searches by indicating thatthe phrases should in the future be searched separately.

In some embodiments, each conversational category of the plurality ofconversational categories represents a conversation formed by anamalgamation of at least two strings that each, individually, match arespective singleton template. For example, if first phrase 104 said“What is the time?” and second phrase 106 said “Where is the nearestcoffee shop at this time,” the media guidance application may thusdetermine that the matching singleton templates, when juxtaposed, aredetermined to forma single query. This determination may also be used toupdate the knowledge graph. In some embodiments, the first string, thesecond string, and the third string may form a single query as well, andthus the first conversation, the second conversation, and the thirdconversation form the single query based on a respective juxtapositionof the first string, the second string, and the third string.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content. for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a, hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video, player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should, be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 2-3 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 2-3 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 2-3 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 2 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 200arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 200 may include grid 202 with(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 204, where, eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 206, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 202 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 208, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 210. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 210 may be provided inprogram information region 212. Region 212 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies, or any other content provided by aparticular content provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “TheSopranos” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service markowned by Time Warner Company L. P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOURENTHUSIASM are trademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internetcontent may include web events, such as a, chat session or Webcast, orcontent available on-demand as streaming content or downloadable contentthrough an Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 202 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 214, recorded content listing 216, andInternet content listing 218. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 200 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings214, 216, and 218 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 202 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 202. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 220. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as. selectingnavigational icons 220.)

Display 200 may also include video region 222, and options region 226.Video region 222 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 222 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 202. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 226 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 226 may be part of display 200 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 226 may concern features related to program listings in grid 202or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 5. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference0 herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is, shown inFIG. 3. Video mosaic display 300 includes, selectable options 302 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 300, television listings option 304 isselected, thus providing listings 306, 308, 310, and 312 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 300 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 308 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 314 and text portion 316.Media portion 314 and/or text portion 316 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in Media portion 314 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 300 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 306 islarger than listings 308, 310, and 312), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 4 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 400. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 5.User equipment device 400 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 402. I/O path 402 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 404, which includesprocessing circuitry 406 and storage 408. Control circuitry 404 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 402. I/O path 402 may connect control circuitry 404 (andspecifically processing circuitry 406) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 404 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 406. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable-gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 404 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 408). Specifically, control circuitry 404 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 404 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 404 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 404 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality. may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 5). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 408 thatis part of control circuitry 404. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 408 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 5, may be used to supplementstorage 408 or instead, of storage 408.

Control circuitry 404 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 404 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 400. Circuitry 404 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). It storage 408 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 400, the, tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 408.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 404 using user inputinterface 410. User input interface 410 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user-input interfaces. Display 412 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400. For example, display 412 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 410may be integrated with or combined with display 412. Display 412 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, liquid crystal display (LCD) fora mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature poly silicondisplay, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, active matrixdisplay, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathode raytube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescent display,plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display, thin-filmtransistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 412 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 412 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 412.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry404. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 404.Speakers 414 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400 or may be stand-alone units, The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 412 may be played throughspeakers 414. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers414.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 400. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage408), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 404 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 408 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 404 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 410. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 410 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some, embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 400 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 400. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 404 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 404) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 400. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 400.Equipment device 400 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 410 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 400 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 410.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 400 for presentation to the user.

In Some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 404). In some embodiments, the guidance.application may be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF),received by control circuitry 404 as part of a suitable feed, andinterpreted by a user agent running on control circuitry 404. Forexample, the guidance application may be an EBIF application. In someembodiments, the guidance application may be defined by a series, ofJAVA-based files that are, received and run by a local virtual machineor other suitable middleware executed by control circuitry 404. In someof such embodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 400 of FIG. 4 can be implemented in system 500 ofFIG. 5 as user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504,wireless user communications device 506, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 4 may pot be classified solelyas user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, or awireless user communications device 506. For example, user televisionequipment 502 may, like some user computer equipment 504, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 504 may, like some television equipment 502, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 504, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 506.

In system 500, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 5 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 502, user computer equipment 504, wireless user communicationsdevice 506) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 514.Namely, user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, andwireless user communications device 506 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 514 via communications paths 508, 510, and 512, respectively.Communications network 514 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 508, 510, and 512 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 512 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 5 it is awireless path and paths 508 and 510 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 508, 510, and 512, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 514.

System 500 includes content source 516 and media guidance data source518 coupled to communications network 514 via communication paths 520and 522, respectively. Paths 520 and 522 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 508, 510,and 512.

Communications with the content source 516 and media guidance datasource 518 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths, butare shown as a single path in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each content source516 and media guidance data source 518, but only one of each is shown inFIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The different types ofeach of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, content source516 and media guidance data source 518 may be integrated as one sourcedevice. Although communications between sources 516 and 518 with userequipment devices 502, 504, and 506 are shown as through communicationsnetwork 514, in some embodiments, sources 516 and 518 may communicatedirectly with user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 via communicationpaths (not shown) such as those described above in connection with paths508, 510, and 512.

Content source 516 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 516 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 516 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 516 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of Content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 518 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 518may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 518 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 518 mayprovide user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicate a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate access toa particular service or Source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as One towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 408, and executedby control circuitry 404 of a user equipment device 400. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications, where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 404 of user equipment device 400and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 518) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 518), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 518 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices502, 504, and 506 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe User equipment device.

Media guidance system 500 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 5.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 514.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home. equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating. with amedia guidance. application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 516 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 502 and user computer equipment 504may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 506 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing Sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users, and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 514. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 516 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 518. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, and wirelessuser communications device 506. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by Others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as, camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 504 or wireless usercommunications device 506 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 504. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 514. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 4.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether two separate commands are part of a same conversation, or areisolated, individual commands, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure. Process 600 begins at 602, where the media guidanceapplication may detect a first phrase and a second phrase. The firstphrase may be first phrase 104, and the second phrase may be secondphrase 106.

The media guidance application may be executed by control circuitry 404of user equipment 100. User equipment 100 may include any capabilitydescribed with respect to user equipment 502, 504, and/or 506. The mediaguidance application may detect the phrases by way of user inputinterface 410 (which is depicted for convenience in FIG. 1 as microphone102, but may be any user input interface 410). For example, as depictedin FIG. 1, the media guidance application may detect that a user hasuttered “Show me action movies” and may also detect that a user hasuttered “with Tom Cruise.”

Process 600 may continue to 604, where the media guidance applicationmay translate first phrase 104 to a first string of word types bydetermining what type of word each word, of first phrase 104 represents.As described above and below, the media guidance application may performthis translation by consulting a database, such as media guidance datasource 518. The database, may be stored local to user equipment 100(e.g., on storage 408) or remote to user equipment 100 (e.g., on mediaguidance data source 518, which may be accessed by way of communicationsnetwork 514).

Process 600 may continue, to 606, where the media guidance applicationmay replace each word of first phrase 104 with its respective type Forexample, if first phrase 104 is the phrase “Show me action movies,”consistent with the above and below, the media guidance application maytranslate first phrase 104 to ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category.’Process 600 may continue to 608 and 610, where steps similar to 604 and606 are performed in the same manner on second phrase 106 instead offirst phrase 104, thus resulting in a translation of both first phrase104 and second phrase 106 into first and second strings of word types,respectively.

Process 600 may then continue to 612, where the media guidanceapplication may generate a third string of word types by appending thesecond string to the end of the first string. For example, if the firststring of word types is ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category,’ and thesecond string of word types is ‘transitional word’ ‘crew,’ then thethird string would be the following: ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category’‘transitional word’ ‘crew.’

Process 600 may then continue to 614, where the media guidanceapplication may determine a first degree to which the first string andthe second string matches any singleton template of a plurality ofsingleton templates by comparing both the first string and the secondstring to the plurality of singleton templates. For example, asdescribed above and below, the media guidance application may determinethe likelihood that either or both of the first and second strings arestand-alone commands that do not depend on one another.

Process 600 may then continue to 616, where the media guidanceapplication may determine a second degree to which the third stringmatches any conversational template of a plurality of conversationaltemplates. This may be performed in any manner described above andbelow. For example, the media guidance application may determine thelikelihood that the first and second strings, as combined, are intendedto form a single search string.

Process 600 may then continue to 618, where it is determined whether thefirst degree exceeds the second degree. If the first degree does exceedthe second degree, process 600 may continue to 620, where the mediaguidance application may decrease a strength of association between thefirst string and a conversational category, thus noting that the firststring is likely an isolated search command that does not depend onanother string. Process 600 may then continue to 622, where the mediaguidance application may similarly decrease a strength of associationbetween the second string and the conversational category.

If, at 618, it is determined that the first degree does not exceed thesecond degree, process 00 may continue from 618 to 622, where the mediaguidance application may increase the strength of association betweenthe first string and the conversational category, thus noting that thefirst string is likely a combined search command that depends on anotherstring. Process 600 may then continue to 624, where the media guidanceapplication may similarly increase the strength of association betweenthe second string and the conversational category.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determining adegree to which a string of word types matches a template, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. Process 700 begins at 702,where the media guidance application may begin a process for determininga degree to which a string of word types matches a template. Forexample, process 700 may be a subroutine to accomplish 614 or 616 ofFIG. 6.

Process 700 may continue to 704, where the media guidance applicationmay access a database comprising a plurality of templates. For example,the media guidance application may access media guidance data source 518by way of communications network 414. Media guidance data source 518 mayinclude entries of a plurality of templates, such as the singleton andconversational templates described above.

Process 700 may continue to 706, where the media guidance applicationmay compare word types of respective positions in the string to wordtypes of the same respective positons of each template of the pluralityof templates. Drawing from the examples above, if the string of wordtypes is ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category,’ and a template also is‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category,’ then the comparison would yield amatch for each word type. If, however, the template was ‘command’‘genre’ ‘media category’ ‘sub-command,’ then only a partial match wouldbe yielded for the comparison because ‘sub-command’ is not within thestring of word types. The comparisons may indicate how close of a matcheach comparison yields by scoring the match. For example, in the secondexample of this paragraph, a score of 75% may be attributed becausethree of the four words of the template are within the string of wordtypes. Any form of logic or fuzzy logic may be used to calculate thescores.

Process 700 may continue to 708, where the media guidance applicationmay determine, based on the comparing, a template that most closelymatches the string. For example, after comparing the string of wordtypes to each template of the plurality of templates, a closest matchmay be determined. The closest match may be the match with the highestscore, as described above.

Process 700 may continue to 710, where the media guidance applicationmay compute the degree to which the string matches the template byweighting portions of the string that match the template with a highweight, by weighting portions of the string that do not match thetemplate with a low weight, and by Computing the degree based on theaggregate weight attributed to each word type of the string. Forexample, after a closest template is determined, the degree to which thestring of word types matches the closest template may be computed. Thismaybe done in a manner similar to the scoring mechanism described withrespect to 706 and 708.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether separate commands are part of a single conversation, based oninformation of a knowledge graph, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure. Process 800 begins at 802, where the media guidanceapplication may receive a first phrase, a second phrase, and a thirdphrase. For example, the first phrase may be first phrase 104 of “Showme action movies,” the second phrase may be second phrase 106 of “withTom Cruise,” and the third phrase may say “and Paula Patton.”

At 804, the media guidance application may translate the first phrase toa first string of word types by determining what type of word each wordof the first phrase represents, and by replacing each word of the firstphrase with its respective type. This may occur in any manner describedabove and below. As described above, translating first phrase 104 mayresult in ‘command’ ‘genre’ ‘media category.’

At 806, the media guidance application may translate the second phraseto a second string of word types by determining what type of word eachword of the Second phrase represents, and by replacing each word of thesecond phrase with its respective type. This may occur in any mannerdescribed above or below. As an example, second phrase 106 may betranslated to ‘transitional word’ ‘crew.’

At 808, the media guidance application may translate the third phrase toa third string of word types by determining what type of word each wordof the third phrase represents, and by replacing each word of the thirdphrase with its respective type. This may occur in any manner describedabove or below. As an example, the third phrase may be translated to‘transitional word’ ‘crew.’

At 810, the media guidance application may access a knowledge graph todetermine a first strength of association between a combination of thefirst string and the second string and any conversational category of aplurality of conversational categories The knowledge graph may belocated at media guidance data source 518, and may be accessed by way ofcommunications network 514. The strength of association may bedetermined by combining the first string and the second string, andtransmitting a query to the knowledge graph to learn of a strength ofassociation stored in the knowledge graph of the combined first andsecond string with any conversational category of the knowledge graph.For example, each conversational category may have an entry, and eachsuch entry may contain a data structure that indicates strengths ofassociations with various strings. The strength of association calledfor here may be learned from such a data structure.

At 812, the media guidance application may access the knowledge graph todetermine a second strength of association between a combination of thesecond string and the third string and any conversational category ofthe plurality of conversational categories. The same operationsdescribed with respect to 810 apply to 812.

At 814, the media guidance application may determine whether any of thefirst strength of association and the second strength of associationequal or exceed a threshold. This may involve a numerical comparison ofthe first strength of association and/or the second strength ofassociation to a threshold. The threshold is described above. At 816,the media guidance application may determine whether both the firststrength and association and the second strength of association equal orexceed the threshold. If the determination is yes, process 800 maycontinue to 818; if the determination is no, process 800 may continua to820.

At 818, the media guidance application may determine that each of thefirst string, the second string, and the third string are part of afirst conversation. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that each of “show me action Movies” “with Tom Cruise” and“with Paula Patton” forms one single query.

At 820, the media guidance application may determine whether the firststrength of association exceeds, the threshold, but the second strengthof association does not exceed the threshold. If the media guidanceapplication determines that this is the case, process 800 may continueto 822; if the media guidance application determines, however, that thisis not the case, process 800 may continue to 824. At 822, the mediaguidance application may determine that the first string and the secondstring are part of a second conversation that the third string is not apart of. For example, the media guidance application may determine that“Show me movies with Tom Cruise” is of a different conversation than thethird string, which may say “Tell me the weather.”

At 824, the media guidance application may determine whether the secondstrength of association, exceeds the threshold, but the first strengthof association does not exceed the threshold. If the answer is in theaffirmative, process 800 may continue to 826, where the media guidanceapplication may determine that the second string and the third stringare part of a third conversation that the first string is not a part of.If the answer is in the negative, process 800 may end.

It should be noted that processes 600-800 or any step thereof could beperformed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 1 and4-5. For example, any of processes 600-800 may be executed by controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by control circuitry implemented onuser equipment 502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5) in order to ensure mediaborrowed by a user is returned to its rightful owner. In addition, oneor more steps of processes 600-800 may be incorporated into, or combinedwith one or more steps of any other process or embodiment.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of each of FIGS. 6-8may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition,the steps and descriptions described in relation to FIGS. 6-8 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, each of these steps may be performed inany order or in parallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lagor increase the speed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should benoted that any of the devices or equipment discussed in relation toFIGS. 1 and 4-5 could be used to perform one or more of the steps inFIGS. 6-8.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in the present invention may be embodied, in a computer programproduct that includes a computer-usable and/or readable medium. Forexample, such a computer-usable medium may consist of a read-only memorydevice, such as a CD-ROM disk or conventional ROM device, or a randomaccess memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette,having a computer-readable program code stored thereon. It should alsobe understood that methods, techniques, and processes involved in thepresent invention may be executed using processing circuitry. Forinstance, determining whether an estimated time of arrival precedes abroadcast time of a preferred program may be performed, e.g., byprocessing circuitry 406 of FIG. 4. The processing circuitry, forinstance, may be a general purpose processor, a customized integratedcircuit (e.g., an ASIC), or a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)within user equipment 400, media content source 516, or media guidancedata source 518. For example, a user profile, as described herein, maybe stored in, and retrieved from, storage 408 of FIG. 4, or mediaguidance data source 518 of FIG. 5. Furthermore, processing circuitry,or a computer program, may update settings associated with a user, suchas a register of media assets stored on a user's user equipment,updating the information stored within storage 408 of FIG. 4 or mediaguidance data source 518 of FIG. 5.

The processes discussed above are intended, to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps, of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features andlimitations-described in any one embodiment may be applied to any otherembodiment herein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodimentmay be combined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted, the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to,or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

1-50. (canceled)
 51. A method for training a processor-executed datamodel to accurately determine whether two phrases are conversationallyconnected, the method comprising: generating a first string of wordtypes based on a first phrase and a second string of word types based ona second phrase; generating a third string of word types by appendingthe second string of word types to the end of the first string of wordtypes; determining a first degree of matching based on (1) comparing thefirst string of word types with a first singleton template and (2)comparing the second string of word types with a second singletontemplate; determine a second degree of matching based on comparing thethird string of word types with a conversational category; determiningwhether the first degree of matching exceeds the second degree ofmatching; and in response to determining that the first degree ofmatching exceeds the second degree of matching, decreasing, in a graphof related entities stored in a database, a first strength ofassociation between the first string of word types and theconversational category by a pre-defined amount; and in response todetermining that the first degree of matching does not exceed the seconddegree of matching, increasing, in the graph of related entities storedin the database, the first strength of association between the firststring of word types and the conversational category by the pre-definedamount.
 52. The method of claim 51, further comprising: retrievingexpected importance levels of word types; determining a respectiveexpected importance level for each word type of the first string of wordtypes; and identifying a predominant word type based on a highestdetermined respective expected importance level corresponding to arespective word type of the first string of word types.
 53. The methodof claim 52, further comprising: determining, based on the predominantword type of the first string of word types, a string type; andincreasing a strength of association of the first string of word typeswith the string type, wherein the conversational category is associatedwith the string type.
 54. The method of claim 51, wherein each singletontemplate represents a template of word types that represent a validsearch query that requires no further input to be executed.
 55. Themethod of claim 51, wherein the second phrase is detected subsequent toa time at which the first phrase is detected, and wherein determining afirst degree of matching comprises: determining whether a word type of afirst word of the second string of word types is of a transitional type;and in response to determining that the word type of the first word ofthe second string of word types is of the transitional type, decreasingthe first degree of matching.
 56. The method of claim 55, furthercomprising increasing the second degree of matching in response todetermining that the word type of the first word of the second string isof the transitional type.
 57. The method of claim 55, wherein thepre-defined amount is a first pre-defined amount, further comprising, inresponse to determining that the first degree of matching does notexceed the second degree of matching, modifying a second strength ofassociation between the second string of word types and theconversational category by a second pre-defined amount.
 58. The methodof claim 51, wherein generating the first string of word types based onthe first phrase and the second string of word types based on the secondphrase comprises: extracting a word from either the first phrase or thesecond phrase; comparing the word to entries of a database thatindicates word types of known words; determining whether a word type isknown based on the comparing; and in response to determining that theword type is known, replacing the word with the word type indicated inan entry corresponding with the word.
 59. The method of claim 58,further comprising, in response to determining that the word type isunknown: comparing the word to entries of a dictionary database todetermine a grammatical category of the word; determine a high-levelcategory corresponding to the word; and extrapolating a word type basedon the grammatical category and the high-level category.
 60. The methodof claim 51, further comprising, in response to determining that thefirst degree of matching does not exceed the second degree of matching:creating a combined phrase by combining the first phrase with the secondphrase; and executing a search on the combined phrase.
 61. A system fortraining a processor-executed data model to accurately determine whethertwo phrases are conversationally connected, the system comprising:communications circuitry; and control circuitry configured to: generatea first string of word types based on a first phrase and a second stringof word types based on a second phrase; generate a third string of wordtypes by appending the second string of word types to the end of thefirst string of word types; determine a first degree of matching basedon (1) comparing the first string of word types with a first singletontemplate and (2) comparing the second string of word types with a secondsingleton template; determine a second degree of matching based oncomparing the third string of word types with a conversational category;determine whether the first degree of matching exceeds the second degreeof matching; and in response to determining that the first degree ofmatching exceeds the second degree of matching, decrease, in a graph ofrelated entities stored in a database, a first strength of associationbetween the first string of word types and the conversational categoryby a pre-defined amount; and in response to determining that the firstdegree of matching does not exceed the second degree of matching,increase, in the graph of related entities stored in the database, thefirst strength of association between the first string of word types andthe conversational category by the pre-defined amount.
 62. The system ofclaim 61, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:retrieve expected importance levels of word types; determine arespective expected importance level for each word type of the firststring of word types; and identify a predominant word type based on ahighest determined respective expected importance level corresponding toa respective word type of the first string of word types.
 63. The systemof claim 62, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:determine, based on the predominant word type of the first string ofword types, a string type; and increase a strength of association of thefirst string of word types with the string type, wherein theconversational category is associated with the string type.
 64. Thesystem of claim 61, wherein each singleton template represents atemplate of word types that represent a valid search query that requiresno further input to be executed.
 65. The system of claim 61, wherein thesecond phrase is detected subsequent to a time at which the first phraseis detected, and wherein the control circuitry is further configured todetermine a first degree of matching by: determining whether a word typeof a first word of the second string of word types is of a transitionaltype; and in response to determining that the word type of the firstword of the second string of word types is of the transitional type,decreasing the first degree of matching.
 66. The system of claim 65,wherein the control circuitry is further configured to increase thesecond strength of association in response to determining that the wordtype of the first word of the second string is of the transitional type.67. The system of claim 65, wherein a pre-defined amount is a firstpre-defined amount, and wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to, in response to determining that the first degree ofmatching does not exceed the second degree of matching, modify a secondstrength of association between the second string of word types and theconversational category by a second pre-defined amount.
 68. The systemof claim 61, wherein the control circuitry is further configured togenerate the first string of word types based on the first phrase andthe second string of word types based on the second phrase by:extracting a word from either the first phrase or the second phrase;comparing the word to entries of a database that indicates word types ofknown words; determining whether a word type is known based on thecomparing; and in response to determining that the word type is known,replacing the word with the word type indicated in an entrycorresponding with the word.
 69. The system of claim 68, wherein thecontrol circuitry is further configured, in response to determining thatthe word type is unknown, to: compare the word to entries of adictionary database to determine a grammatical category of the word;determine a high-level category corresponding to the word; andextrapolate a word type based on the grammatical category and thehigh-level category.
 70. The system of claim 61, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured to, in response to determining that thefirst degree of matching does not exceed the second degree of matching:create a combined phrase by combining the first phrase with the secondphrase; and execute a search on the combined phrase.